Certainly plausible. I never have figured out why immigration became such a big deal, apparently overnight. What, Dobbs?
There's no one explanation, right? I bet a lot has to do with what gets oversimplified as "racism"-- the unease over these new & different people undermining our folkways, and so on; false beliefs about the economics; and more the general "things are on the wrong track" feeling than about the war in particular.
I think that this is more or less of a no-brainer. Indeed, while hilzoy deserves credit for articulating it well, I don't think this is a new insight. Rs have been flailing about for a way to express displeasure with Dear Leader (recall the "Bush is a liberal" BS rolled out last fall), and this is an issue where he genuinely holds a position counter to the base's.
Unfortunately, this is also an issue where Congressional Rs have every reason to distance themselves from Bush, and thus avoid rightwing backlash.
I posted on that thread but I'll repeat myself here: I don't really buy it. Something equivalent to Sabra and Shatila would be Abu Ghraib, or Haditha-- a trigger for saying about the war what you'd been thinking but afraid to say. That's not quite what's going on here. They're as apologetic for all aspects of the war on terror as they've always been. Bush gets in trouble with the GOP base when he's perceived as being too liberal.
It's not that I don't think the Iraq war has anything to do with it. He's become a political millstone around their neck & they'll still defend his foreign policies--only recently did they finally give it a rest with the Churchill and Lincoln analogies. So it's not unreasonable to expect loyalty in return, and when they don't get it, they flip out. There's not much reason for them to suppress their disagreement with Bush anymore; the more distance from him, the better.
I think they're looking for a scapegoat & a distraction, and gays and terrorists got old.
2: Well, as I said, the base has always felt this way about immigrants - English First laws have been a wedge issue staple for longer than fag-bashing - but that doesn't explain the ape-shit response.
I listened to about a minute of some radio hate guy yesterday, and he had a list of issues where Bush had failed the base - including not "prosecuting the war in an appropriate manner" - but immigration topped it all. Basically, the Right thought that they were Kings of the World just 2 years ago, and now they look at their empire of shit, and Someone must be blamed. Since they don't consider Dems to be Real Americans, they don't even qualify for scapegoating anymore. And Bush is gone in 18 months no matter what, so Bush it is.
immigration became such a big deal, apparently overnight
It certainly didn't happen overnight. The right wing has been all up in arms over this for a long time.
The right wing has been all up in arms over this for a long time.
Huh, I completely missed this. I blame feminism.
When I was working in the Senate, the issue the crazy conservatives who wrote to us used to justify their claims to not just be Bush partisans was immigration. And boy, did they ever have strong opinions on it.
Despite what I said in 5, I think 6 is overstated. If you compare the amount of right wing hate spewed over gays and immigrants in any of the last 8 years, this is the first year where immigrants would win.
As I said, this was a pre-existing condition, but other factors inflamed it at this point in time.
Seriously, feminism blinded us to the real enemy.
I think you boys mean "anti-feminist reactionary bullshit."
Oh, and let's not forget what a small minority is actually upset about this. Although this specific bill has now been tarnished, on the general ideas contained therein - including amnesty - the rightwing position polls under 35%. Maybe under 30%. That's a lot worse than most rightwing positions in this 50-50 age.
PS - I know that, on many issues, Dem positions actually poll a majority, but rarely that big a one.
No, I mean everyone else's complaints were drowned out.
I'm inclined to agree with Katherine, but I'm at a loss to understand the intensity of anti-immigrant sentiment. I don't remember such anger over the 1987 amnesty, and while there are many differences between then and now, it did pass, and it passed during the Reagan administration.
I thought that immigration became a big deal because Bush started pushing immigration reform, not because the heartland needed to sublimate their anger.
Also I thought it caused a split because it wedges open the weird-ass partnership between the religious right and big business, not because the religious right was seething over Iraq.
13: Because of course no immigrants are women, and feminists have never said anything about immigration, ever. Mmmhm.
I don't think the immigration bill was a good idea. The US government has lost control of its immigration policy. It is unable to stop the illegal immigration of low-skilled workers from Mexico. I see why people are pissed off.
I don't think hilzoy has this quite right. At least I don't think it's general dissatisfaction with the war that's driving the current push on immigration, because many of the people who are anti-illegal really don't think war is going badly. The 27% crazification factor scores high both on the war and on anti-illegal push.
A couple things I see driving this: 9/11 gets tossed around a lot because the terrorists snuck in through Mexico (so they say), so this feeds into handwringing over securing our borders. USCIS received a boatload of extra funding after 9/11 to improve their processes. That ran out last year, and they've been lobbying for more funding, so that gets some of this in the news. And this administration is desperate for a win.
I have no idea how to solve any of this, but I'm pretty sure that pretty much any easy fix is going to blow up in our faces.
Wait, are the right wing crazies really blaming Mexico for 9/11? Because, as you must know, Cala, it was Canada.
Where was shivbunny on 9/10/01?
Hilzoy wants to love and respect this country, in ways I admire but sometimes shake my head at. Her Memorial Day "We are a better country than that..." drove this home to me; "Are we?" I thought to myself. Katherine's right, Abu Ghraib would be a better equivalent, and good luck with that. Many of us are appalled and ashamed, of course, but not nearly enough of us. This immigration anger is not an appropriate reaction misdirected, as several of us have said above, it's the latest form of their characteristic viciousness.
Oh, wait, Bush pushed immigration because Rove's master plan is to capture the Hispanic vote and keep the Republicans in power for a generation. Right right, I'm remembering now. But being nice to Hispanics makes the crazies angry, so, problem...
Anyway, the immigration thing has been a major issue in the west for a long, long time--as long as I can remember. It's come to a head on the national stage probably b/c of what Cala's saying--the "omg what if the terrorists come in with the wetbacks?!?" thing--but I also think it's been there in the Republican party ever since they all fell in love with Reagan and the self-image of the libertarian-type Republican party that only spends money on Defending America.
All the polls on this are bullshit because no normal American has any idea what's involved. Do you favor cracking down on illegals and deporting them? Oh yes indeedy. You realize we'd have to increase the number of judges a hundredfold to get it down to a reasonable time? Oh dear, that sounds like a lot of money.
(Or, maybe we can just dispense with due process. They'll only arrest the Mexicans, after all.)
Should we crack down on employers? Oh yes indeedy. Naughty employers. Do you file 1099s for your babysitter and check her social security card? Oh no. Your lawn mower?
hilzoy is simply wrong.
1) Immigration and nativism have been cyclical issues for centuries in America; I certainly don't need to recite the history. When & why it becomes a dominant issue might be interesting. IIRC, for instance the Northwest 1880-1900 with anti-Catholic legislation;Texas at much the same time suddenly remembered the Alamo. The current wave, like most previous waves, likely comes from economic stress.
2) As I understand it, Latin-American immigrants have recently been moving out of the previous areas to rural America. Places like Birmingham and Nashville have rapidly rising populations.
The right wing has been all up in arms over this for a long time.
Yeah. It's like y'all have never heard the phrase "Prop 187" before.
19: Don't try to fool me! All illegals are Mexicans. And dirty. And speak Spanish. No one ever overstays a tourist visa or a student visa or enters from Canada.
Here are some Krugman columns on the economic impact of the new immigration:
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/03/paul_krugman_no.html
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/03/krugmans_notes_.html
I'm pretty sure that pretty much any easy fix is going to blow up in our faces.
Again, I don't think so - the only ones who care (much) about this are right wing nuts. Sure, there are a few Ds who aren't thrilled about the immigration situation, but the people who want to punish someone over this bill would never, ever, vote D.
Further, the simple reality is that there isn't a big problem. Just as the country didn't go to hell after the '87 amnesty, so it won't go to hell after this one (if/when it happens). So those few rational people who are het up on this issue will forget about it once the bill is passed, the screamers move on to Hillary-hating, and nothing much changes (except that things get better for some Mexican-Americans).
It wasn't just Bush driving it. Tancredo passed a crazy, mean bill through the house in late 2005, which triggered the big immigration rallies...Everyone seems to have forgotten now, but the Republican Senate last year passed a far, far, more pro-immigrant bill than this one by a filibuster proof majority. But that died in conference because of the sh*tty house version. This year, the House is better, but the Senate's flipped the other way since there's been fewer pro-immigration rallies & more sustained intensity among anti-immigrant folks...
It's all very odd. If you want an example of there not being much rhyme or reason to shifts in American public opinion immigration is it. We pass a mass legalization under Reagan; we pass several mean-ass laws under Clinton partly because of backlash against immigrants from the Oklahoma City bombing; and there's no real good explanation for it going from not a real issue in 2004 to a pressing crisis requiring a border wall in late 2005 to a humanitarian need for legalization in 2006 to this current impasse. If you want evidence of rationality in Washington, immigration is the last place in the world to look for it.
It's like y'all have never heard the phrase "Prop 187" before.
But the question (my question, anyway) is why this is coming back now. Prop 187 was a long time ago. But I've answered it to my own satisfaction.
Finally, a point has been raised that most previous waves of immigration did inspire temporary barriers and time for immigrants to fully assimilate and nativists to calm down. Mexican/Latin American illegal immigration has not really had such a break, but has been constant and increasing(?) for decades.
Just as the country didn't go to hell after the '87 amnesty, so it won't go to hell after this one (if/when it happens).
I don't remember the details, but I think the '87 amnesty somehow made immigrants that arrived since then way more exploitable. Lil help, anyone?
28: I include among that doing the same thing as '86, having more exploited people, and having to do the same damn thing in another twenty years. And a half-assed solution is likely to go enforced.
Guys! Guys! J.D. Hayworth just sent me an urgent personal message -- "Pro-amnesty elitists promise to keep bringing up the Amnesty Bill for illegal aliens because they say our network of activists will soon get tired of fighting their bill!" He even asks me not to leave his fundraising solicitation out where others can see it, lest it be "intercepted by liberal operatives"! This is serious!
hilzoy is simply wrong. [...] When & why it becomes a dominant issue might be interesting.
It's not clear to me what the anti-hilzoy argument here is (aside from the false analogy - is there any other kind? - to Shatila). Yes, certain Rs have always hated and feared Mexicans. No, it has not been an election-shifting issue in recent years. So now it is (or appears to be). So what changed?
Well, the President pushing a non-Mexiphobic solution is the most conservative in history - oh, and also the most failed in history. Denial in Iraq or not, rightwingers know that the stench of failure clings to Bush, and they also know that, until about from 5 minutes ago, they too clung to Bush.
It is enormously important to the Conservative Movement to distance itself from the failed Bush Admin. If exploiting Mexiphobia does it, that's fine.
As for the fact that it splits the coalition, well, the business interests exploited the radio haters, and paid for them, but they never showed their faces, because Limbaugh listeners, even though they're pro-corporate, don't want to think of themselves as tools of The Man. So most of the radio haters never played up the Big Business part of the coalition - they got that part of the job done by calling everyone to the left of Milton Friedman Communists. But in a cultural dog whistle situation like this, Big Business interests go right out the window.
The part about not letting liberals see it is SO AWESOME, and it goes on for quite a while. Pity we don't have a scanner here at home so we could share it with the world immediately.
Why on earth are you guys getting mail from J.D. Hayworth?
35:If analogies are banned, is all history also banned? I need more evidence for a conspiracy, or a spontaneous symbolic base reaction against Bush for his myriad failures, before I blow off history and ideology.
When were the other times the base turned against Bush? Medicare-D and Harriet Miers. These were not proxies for more embarrassing dsputes, but deeply felt ideological reactions. This is the same. I have not been given sufficient evidence in this case to think millions of people are being disingenuous.
aid, economic stress in the heartland as a cause of nativism and outbreaks of prejudice has many historical precedents, and connects to disputes over trade and globalization.
37: I have no idea. It's very weird. Did he buy the ACLU mailing list by mistake?
Why is such an obvious imagining of intentionality given a pass with hilzoy? When did she become a mind-reader, capable of discerning the real secret motives behind the actual expressions?
I have to prove she is wrong, by being a better mind-reader?
29: The OKC bombing caused an anti-immigrant backlash? Wha? McVeigh and Nichols were both native born, no?
There was no rational reason for the Harriet Miers thing to be "deeply felt." I've always thought of that as being a sort of spoiled brat response - it was before the honeymoon was over, and the base wasn't used to not being pandered to. But it wasn't anything like that big of a deal.
Anyway, as I said, I don't think there's a 1:1 relationship between failed war and immigration furor, but I think there's a strong relationship between failed presidency and immigration furor (note: Bush ran in 2000 very pro-Hispanic, pro-immigrant. Guest Worker was a first-term idea. So y'all need to explain to me why, when Iraq seemed to be OK, when Bush's approval was generally positive, the base was OK with those things).
And Labs gets it right in the post with the word "charitable." It is typical hilzoy, looking for the pony in the dungheap. Largely why I stopped going over there.
Without having read all the comments to see if anyone's mentioned this, but immigration has been a big part of California politics since the 1980s, at least. I vaguely remember a governor considering a run in the Republican primaries based on what he thought would be national support for his immigration policies, but I guess more polling told him otherwise. I wasn't following closely; I wasn't even old enough to vote.
It wasn't such a big issue when the economy was up, though, so it seems like new; worries about terrorism may have upped the intensity, though.
I'm just checking my impressions on this one; tell me if I'm on crack about this.
Over the last five or so years, when I've visited more suburbany parts of the country, I've been very struck by the crowds of Latino men hanging out, waiting to be picked up (or not) for day work. In a least a few places I know of, their visible presence is new. However, I really have no idea whether or to what degree this phenomenon or the visibility of this phenomenon is new.
Mind you, I grew up in No. California and went to college in So. California. It's not that I'm not used to seeing a lot of Latino people around. A crowd of 20-30 guys waiting in a parking lot does seem new, though.
immigration has been a big part of California politics since the 1980s, at least.
I'd been wondering about this; one of the reasons I've not taken a strong position on the immigration issue that that acquaintances in California and the Southwest have declared to me in no uncertain terms that as an east coaster, I simply cannot understand the issues at hand. They'd clearly been highly exercised over the matter for some time.
Yeah, immigration's been a big deal in the Southwest for ages. Its prominence as a national issue is probably tied to increasing numbers of immigrants in places that are unaccustomed to them (particularly the South), plus, in the more immediate past, the struggles of the Republican party in the wake of the Iraq debacle.
increasing numbers of immigrants in places that are unaccustomed to them (particularly the South)
My memories continue to be vague on this, but I think there were a bunch of news stories along the lines of "immigrants aren't just in the border states anymore" just a few years ago.
Also, I believe that in order to tap into the National Greatness base, Bush empowered a pernicious nativism. We went back and forth about the Dubai Ports World thing, but Bush and his business allies seemed to have been genuinely taken aback by the strength of the Republican pushback on that deal.
The governor I was thinking of was Pete Wilson, whose ad here leads with his opposition to illegal immigration.
48: Yeah, that's what I mean. I seem to recall North Carolina in particular being mentioned as a place immigrants are now flocking to.
45: I distinctly recall crowds of (mostly latino) laborers gathering in the K-Mart parking lot from back in my youth in the 80's. This was in the environs of Santa Cruz, CA.
I started to read the comments, but decided just to spout off uniformed as uasual.
1. The issue is not immigration, it is illegal immigration. Far too often there is an attempt to portray those who are upset about illegal immigration as racist, but what is upsetting is the illegal part, not the immigration part.
2. the 1987 amnesty was supposed to be a one time deal. If another amnesty passes, we have effectively given up on any sort of border control. The wets will just wait it out until the next one.
3. Add to the mix the fact that we are trying to keep out terrorists, who presumably try to be stealthy when in fact we can't even keep out the brazenly defiant seeking work, it's no wonder people are angry.
4. More than a few "illegals" have not swum the Rio Grande, but have overstayed either tourist or student visas. When I was abroad I had to register with the local police, and that was in mutherfucking England for Christ's sake. It can't be that hard to keep track, but it seems like they aren't even trying.
53: Did you seriously just say "the wets"? Was that entire comment satire or something?
54:TLL, you can't fool me, this is really about Iraq and Cheney, isn't it? I don't expect you to admit it, but it's okay. I understand.
Heck 55 54/sb 53 obviously. Or maybe not?
spout off uniformed
Really, whatever you wear to work is fine. There's no dress code here.
McManus gets it. Economic stress. Take a good look at real wages, housing costs, healthcare, etc. in the last ten, hell, thirty years.
54. I said the wets in a pomo, ironic way, dude. Please, have some faith.
Incidentally, the earliest US border patrols were introduced to keep out the Chinese during the exclusion era.
41: but they didn't know that for a while, and it just got the ball rolling. So my immigration law prof. told us, at any rate. Real fair, isn't it?
Anyway- the issue within the party has been secure the border first- make sure it works, then deal with amnesty or whatever, details to follow. Amnesty first, border security later means no border security ever. And I say unto you, if you want UHC, get behind border security and a sensible immigration policy, or you will never see it.
59: Okay. Long day at work, pomo irony detection skills apparently weak. Sorry for the implication.
And I'm afraid that for the most passionate opponents, it's the immigration part, not the illegal part.
Oh! Oh! Our letter from J.D. Hayworth ALSO mentions that all those nasty illegals get "free 'universal' healthcare" from emergency rooms.
What ACTUALLY makes sense is to start allowing a sensible # of people in, then improve enforcement, then a legalization program. But the "let's secure the borders first" proposal has every bit as much potential to lead to "let's just secure the borders" as amnesty first does...I have literally never seen anything even resembling a reasonable, well-thought-out, thorough enforcement program. They're always missing:
--a reliable means for employers to verify status
--the needed resources for the immigration courts by orders of magnitude
--any attempt to calculate how much full enforcement would cost and provide that funding (& maintain it in future years)
it's always more like a fairly scattershot assortment of punitive measures: build a fence! And more border patrol agents! Ooh, and jails, we need jails! And let's make it a felony to be here illegally! And to provide food, shelter, medical care, or legal assistance to illegal immigrants! And let's name 5 more "aggravated felonies"!
But it never connects into a coherent whole.
Frankly, it's worth this failing if there's any chance of a democratic president actually trying to take a few deep breaths and think this through. But probably we'll have moved on to some new "crisis" by 2009.
I don't know to what extent it's economic stress. That's not motivating the hard core people in Congress & the right wing press. It probably explains some of the poll #s but the poll #s are highly fluid. And if the American worker is feeling pissed of and insecure, card check & minimum wage increase & health care are better remedies than mass deportations or the status quo on immigration, & a competent Democratic party ought to be able to convince them of that.
I don't know to what extent it's economic stress. That's not motivating the hard core people in Congress & the right wing press.
There's a good dose of racism in there as well. But economics is what gives it traction in the general populace. Illegals are something a lot of people feel comfortable venting on.
1. The issue is not immigration, it is illegal immigration. Far too often there is an attempt to portray those who are upset about illegal immigration as racist, but what is upsetting is the illegal part, not the immigration part.
Tancredo? Look, I'd like to be as charitable as possible but when you read people screaming about fence jumpers and the English language and our culture and how they're reducing our property values and the 'Mexicans', it's very hard to hold that they're worried, say, about the Irish in Boston overstaying. I am quite willing to believe that there are many people just concerned about the illegal part, but they're being drowned out by the culture war screechers.
2. the 1987 amnesty was supposed to be a one time deal. If another amnesty passes, we have effectively given up on any sort of border control. The wets will just wait it out until the next one.
Problem is, no one's suggesting any more reasonable measures than the 87 amnesty. If employers can't verify status, and there's currently no way for them to do this, we can't dry up the demand. Absent that, you can build the fence as long as you like and it isn't going to help. It is not feasible to deport 11 million.
Like Katherine says, no one thinks things through. You want to have to prove your citizenship to the ambulance before they'll come to your house?
3. Add to the mix the fact that we are trying to keep out terrorists, who presumably try to be stealthy when in fact we can't even keep out the brazenly defiant seeking work, it's no wonder people are angry.
Most of the 9/11 hijackers were legal visitors. I don't find this at all compelling. We should be vigilant, but it's not as though al-Qaeda is going to give up because we make Americans get passports to go to Canada or build a fence.
4. More than a few "illegals" have not swum the Rio Grande, but have overstayed either tourist or student visas. When I was abroad I had to register with the local police, and that was in mutherfucking England for Christ's sake. It can't be that hard to keep track, but it seems like they aren't even trying.
It is harder than you'd think. I'd have to check the records to be sure, but I think there were 64 million visitors to the U.S. last year. Most of them left. Many of them drove here and drove home. Many of them did not need a tourist visa. Put all that together, and you have a situation that's nigh impossible to police in an open society.
With regards to overstaying your visa, it's not that it's that hard to track that somebody, somewhere has overstayed their visa. It's just, that, y'know, what then?
"Mike came into the country through SFO on 4/2/2007. He just missed his return flight out on 6/28/2007. So, let's see, where could he be after several months?"
I agree with TLL in 53( except for the postmodern part).
69: Sure, you can tell they should have left, but it's a big place. And there's no penalty for overstaying up to 180 days, so even if Mike's status had expired in the 90 days since he'd been here, they're not going to start looking on day 91.
Yeah, I was agreeing & reinforcing that on day 91, they're not going to send you to jail, either. On a visa or as a permanent resident, you're supposed to register with the local whosiwhatsit, but it's pretty much an honor system.
One of the things that drives me crazy about immigration discussions is how fast people seem to want to just hand over basic freedom of movement in the name of tracking illegals. I can only assume they're not thinking it through, what the U.S. would look like if the government could swoop down on day 91 and pluck someone out of their vacation resort.
There's a good dose of racism in there as well. But economics is what gives it traction in the general populace.
"gives it traction" s/b "makes it okay to talk about in polite company." But of course the issue's race; it's bullshit to argue otherwise. No one's worried about au pairs from France overstaying their visas.
No one's worried about au pairs from France overstaying their visas.
But that's partly due to visibility. If you literally had millions of illegal French, people would bitch about it.
what the U.S. would look like if the government could swoop down on day 91 and pluck someone out of their vacation resort
Their vacation resort?
Hell, I know lots of Canadians, chiefly on the west coast, who drive down to the US and then just, you know, stay. For a while. Travel around. No vacation resorts. It's odd, they seem to do it all the time, for 8 months or a year at a stretch, every few years.
The B.C. San Francisco L.A Mexico stint seems to be popular.
And that bitching would be indistinguishible from racism, just like it used to be with Irish immigrants, German immigrants, Japanese immigrants, Chinese immigrants, etc. My point is, it *isn't* immigration per se, nor economics, or we'd be as upset about the French au pairs and Canadian xmas tree salesmen as we are about the "wets," as TLL so charmingly calls them (but with irony!). It's the perception that "all those foreign people" are "invading" "us."
76: The vacation resort isn't mandatory, obviously. It only gets worse if you assume 'RV' or 'private residence', and yet the government can swoop in.
Canadians are permitted to be in the U.S. up to six months consecutively, no more than six months out of every calendar year.
But of course the issue's race; it's bullshit to argue otherwise.
And, of course, when nobody else is watching, they don't pretend otherwise. Dinesh D'Souza nailed it when he explained that the quality of immigrants rises in direct proportion to the distance they are travelling to get to America. Mexicans are not OK.
Tancredo wants a freeze on all immigration. FAIR wants to eliminate asylum. etc. etc.
It's the perception that "all those foreign people" are "invading" "us."
But people tend to take this kind of thing less seriously when they've got good jobs that let them afford a house and good access to healthcare.
How is it racist to be biased against Mexicans in favor of Panamianians or Brazilians? Or is this another instance where a common word is being used as a cultural theory term of art?
It's the perception that "all those foreign people" are "invading" "us."
And that all those foreign people are irredeemably foreign. I remember the good old days when serious conservatives like George Will could argue that America was built on a set of ideas that were distinct from race.
Of course, George doesn't argue that any more because it's hard to think of an American ideal that his clan hasn't trampled.
Mexicans, being more common as workers in the U.S., are "poor" and "dirty." Brazilians, who in the American mindset are associated with Rio and Carnival, are "hot" and "sexy" and "exotic." Both are racist stereotypes, but the former comes into play in immigration debates more than the latter. Y'see.
I find it hard to believe, though, that you were serious with the question.
81: I bet you most of the people worried about are middle-class people in good jobs with comfortable homes who are having conniptions over their culture being corrupted. They don't seem to have problems having the big house with the nice nanny and the manicured lawn.
And that all those foreign people are irredeemably foreign.
Absolutely. Which is why we need to stop granting citizen status to all those anchor babies being born here. Goes the argument.
77: Whatever. Racism or nativism or xenophobie may be the source, but hilzoy was wondering about the varuations of intensity. I go to example and analogy again, but much of German Society was always anti-semitic, so why did Kristallnacht happen in the late 30s? Was it simply exploitation by political leaders?
Why did the Klan march on the Mall in the 20s and not the 30s? OTOH, what was it about the 60s that permitted the Civil Rights Acts?
Or why after centuries of relative comity, are Sunni & Shia in Iraq suddenly killing each other? Should the Kurds be worried, if outbreaks of virulent ethnic & tribal violence are unpredictable so uncontrollable?
86: Because in 21 years, those babies will be able to petition for their parents, and after another five years, they'll get a green card?
Bob, your analogies are distracting now.
Are you trying to revert to the economic hardship argument from earlier? I'm with you on that. It doesn't really need much more defense.
The people's latent insecurities, prejudices and phobias tip over into mobilization when they feel threatened. The two most obvious sources of threat in this country lately are terrorists (who could be crashing through the plate-glass window of your small-town store any minute), and economic insecurity.
Apropos of nothing, as someone who's been here for more than a decade, legally every day of it, and is now paying significant amounts of money for the privilege of being shat on by the combined incompetence of my employer's legal department and the USCIS bureaucracy in the process of getting a Green Card, I can certainly see how the prospect of some kind of magical amnesty for illegals would really piss me off. But of course even under the most generous reading of the proposed legislation there wouldn't have been such an amnesty, just even more of the same incompetent administrative rigmarole for people to go through.
Adjusting from an H1B?
We're missing the jump in fees (+$1000) by about three days. Grrrr.
Foreign Affairs had a bit about how increasing protectionist tendencies seem to be correlated to general economic insecurity rather than being directly or indirectly affected by globalization. A lot of this gets expressed in the form of "I hate having to talk to Indians when I call customer support", but the root cause of the discontent is not a racist dislike of subcontinentals.
A lot of the debate surrounding immigration seems to follow the same path "The only reason people are against immigration is because they are racist bastards who don't like Mexicans", but then where does that leave you? Therefore we don't have to care about their concerns? We need to chide them for being racist? We should protray opposition to immigration as racist so as to push the undecideds to the our side for fear of being associated with undesireable elements?
88: B/c they're Mexican. Or Central American. Or, you know, like that.
89:"Economic insecurity" was simply a hypothesis, one I thought more reasonable than hilzoy's too-subtle signaling. While I wrote it, I was remembering historical refutations
The rest aren't really analogies, but data points. Scholars have trying to understand why the German's relatively quiescent anti-semitism turned genocidal for decades. There is something very unsatisfactory about:"Then the plague hit Metz, so they burned the ghetto." It doesn't really explain anything, ya know?
I am not looking for a General Theory, but need more explanation than "racists" or "nativists". I hate, Lord knows I hate, but I don't act on it. It is a critical distinction.
92: I'm just calling them racists because I'm sick to death of pussyfooting around it while they screech about fence-jumpers and dirty people with no work ethic and mariachi bands-listening dope fiends who could be rapists and murderers and are driving down their property values. I'm tired of pretending they have rational arguments when they argue that we should put people into camps and not give them due process and hold their paychecks Pullman-town style.
If you try to reason with themm to try to come up with a solution, without understanding that it's more than just a worry about whether someone has their I-94 stamped, but a worry that their 'culture' is being overrun, you're unlikely to understand why their solution, say, doesn't consider overstays as serious as EWIs, or why they'll advocate building a fence without improving, say, the systems that help track people once they're here.
Right, what Cala said. What's your point, Jake? That we shouldn't call them racists because that's not nice? If they're expressing their views in racist language, that's racist. And really, I'm not aware of any argument about "illegal" immigration that isn't on some level racist.
Tangential to topic:Somehow I have discovered Google Book Search tonight. Typing in "Georges Sorel" has delivered dozens of pro or semi-pro political theory books written 1900-1930. That time was just more interesting dammit.
We have been too much reduced to homo economicus, in a very passive consumerist reduction. Our media & politics reflects this.
"Fallen Sparrows" 1994 was online for free reading. Sorel came up, because the book is about the International Brigades in Spain in the Civil War. Very moving. They were exceptional, but all the kids who flocked to Afghanistan were exceptional too. Somehow I can't see Westerners doing that anymore.
92: Serious people need to acknowledge that a lot of this stuff is motivated by racism simply because it is. Yes, there are political questions about the best way to talk with racists about racism. But the conversation in this country has been warped by the idea that we cannot call things what they are.
On preview, I must acknowledge pwnage by both Cala and B. But I still want to say it.
I won't go as far as B; there are legitimate reasons to be worried about illegal immigration that aren't racist. But look, I've been up to my eyeballs in immigration fora for the past year; a lot of it is just flat-out racism dressed up as 'we're just worried about our culture and our values.'
What do you all want? Crazy immigration bills not to pass? Mexican and other immigrants not to get royally screwed over? Worthy goals, to be sure. But if what stands in the way of these goals is the racism of large parts of the American populace, then achieving them will be very hard because guess what, lots of people are pretty racist.
Look at what happened when le Pen almost got elected in France on an essentially Tancredo-esque platform. A bit of "You can't vote for le Pen, he's ludicrously racist", and a bunch of "It has come to our attention that many of our citizens feel that they are being screwed over economically, so we will roll out these various new plans to improve your situation."
Feh, I dunno. It only matters to the extent people want to influence the larger policy or to a lesser extent political atmosphere, which god knows I don't care enough about to put effort into. But like bob says, it's not clear what changed in terms of the general population's racism in the past year, while it's pretty clear that the opinions on immigration have shifted a lot.
I want people whose idea of a solution is 'round 'em up, put 'em in pens, we don't need due process, ten year ban, build a fence' to be recognized as not knowing what the hell they're talking about.
Back when I lived in Ohio in the early 90s, when there were a lot of late-middle-aged men out of work now that the machine shops weren't getting orders, their free-floating hate coalesced into the Freemen's "movement." They rebelled against house numbering among other things, and drifted away after Oklahoma City made apocalyptic rhetoric less attractive. There's definitely latent racism, but that's an insufficient explanation for an ugly bill this year. The people I know most angry at darker skin and social changes (three of them, all elderly) are all charged by anger from other things which they can't talk about. Other than that, the most virulent racists I heard talk were the worst-adjusted asians in grad school, who were also under considerable economic stress. 89. seems about right, I'd add that public discussion makes otherwise private beliefs into public ones. Nowadays I don't talk to many racists-- I guess the people here who are most angry do? What are they like, the racists you talk to? Old, young, black, white?
I'm sure there must be legitimate reasons to be fussed about immigration; I'm just saying, I haven't myself heard an argument that I think wasn't at bottom racist. Honestly.
I don't think the polls have shifted much at all. It is possible that we spontaneously went from being indifferent in 2004 to really really anti immigrant in 2005 to pro immigrant in 2006 to more anti immigrant in 2007. But I think a lot of it is extremely jumpy politicians who are trying to follow public opinion without actually seriously looking into what the public thinks, or to what extent they could be convinced to support your position. The default assumption in 2005, as it always is, was that Americans hate foreigners & politicians should vote accordingly. Then those enormous demonstrations in Chicago & LA surprised everyone & reminded them of the Latino vote, and in 2006 the Senate passes a relatively good bill. Then those demonstrations die down & Lou Dobbs drones on and on about leprosy, and there's less pressure to do what Bush wants, & Ted Kennedy drives a pretty bad bargain, and the annual votes on the marriage amendment have lost their effect.
Do you notice how often Congress guesses that the public is actually more conservative than it really is, and how rarely Congress guesses the public is more liberal than it is? Do you notice how the Republicans simply filibuster every single bill they oppose--no matter how unpopular their position is--& remember how many times the Democrats didn't even consider it?
Here are some polls. I'm not seeing a major difference with last year. A few points here and there, but that's all.
For several decades there has been a big gap between public views on illegal immigration (want less of it) and elite views on it (rather like it and won't really act to stop it). But there hasn't been a major immigration reform bill since 1986 to act as a lightning rod for discontent (well, there was sort of one in 1996). This is one now
I don't like high levels of illegal immigration either and wish they could be stopped, and therefore don't have to bend over backwards to find false-consciousness type explanations of the public disapproval of it. I have nothing against immigrants themselves, whatever the race, but I think population growth in the U.S. is too fast, parts of the country are getting overcrowded, and illegal immigration is part of the reason. I also think it drives down wages (yes, I know both sides of the literature on this...), especially for black males, who are in serious need of higher-paying jobs.
Finally, I think the ability to control borders is a basic aspect of democratic sovereignty, and find it annoying when it is assumed people must be racist for wanting to make border control more effective.
It's worthwhile remembering the U.S. has some of the highest immigration levels in the world, all the cutbacks being talked about are from an extremely high level.
Look at the polls. The provisions of this bill were more popular than not.
As you know, Katherine, overall views of the general public aren't particularly relevant to members of Congress. They have to care about the views of their funders, their base voters in their district, and who they think are likely swing voters in their district.
No congressman in Mississippi has to care what I think, or indeed what anyone who's ever going to pay attention to a single thing I ever say thinks.
Intuitively I want to agree with McManus (24) and teofilo (47) that the reason for the sudden salience of immigration among the Republican base is the unprecedented appearance of large Latin American immigrant populations in places like Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Iowa. And yet...there is one troublesome bit of counterevidence. Attitudes about immigration are about the same in West Virginia, which has almost no Latin American immigrants, and where the few immigrants that come are disproportionately doctors and other professionals.
Also, Republican self-identification in in West Virginia is almost comically low (notwithstanding the fact that it twice voted for W.), so it can't be a case of unconscious adoption of a broader GOP party line.
I live in a liberal enclave in NC, but I've seen no negative reaction at all to the explosion of the Hispanic population here (and indeed it has been enormous and sudden). Of course, there are more jobs than workers down here, especially in the construction and service industries, so maybe that blunts the effect some.
Corporate desire for regularizing a guest worker program plus baffled nativism in the wake of recent disasters. I note that my senator—note the singular—, Dick Durbin and other real liberals are against the current bill.
Mexican presence in the small towns and countryside, as JM and others have noticed, is a big change in the last dozen years. My data are observations of small-town Wisconsin and Illinois. Heebie was just there, maybe she can corroborate.
IDP, Durbin voted yes on cloture, didn't he?
I suppose you could explain this result w/ the polls in each state & the unrepresentative nature of the Senate, except that since there's virtually no change in the national polls since McCain Kennedy passed 62-36 last year, I don't know what basis anyone has for assuming that the polls in any particular state changed.
(And, of course, the House has moved in the exact opposite direction as the Senate since last year).
He was against the bill last week, I don't know about cloture. I was relieved to see it failed again, is all.
Of course the polls are just wacko and what they mainly show is how absurdly easily influenced American voters are by what sounds good based on the poll question.
In that link--last year voters in every answered 'yes' to this question in every single state. The margin varied from 16 points to 47 point points; the average was about 25 points:
"Some people believe that the goal of immigration policy should be to keep out national security threats, criminals, and those who would come here to live off our welfare system. Beyond that, all immigrants would be welcome. Do you agree or disagree with that goal for immigration policy?"
Since criminal, public charges, & national security threats are individual grounds for inadmissibility, this is is a call to and end on almost all numerical limits on immigration & would greatly increase the amount of legal immigration we would allow. But if you actually ask if we should increase or decrease the level of legal immigration, they send to say "decrease".
Voters answered "no" to this question in every single state, by a margin of 9 to 41 points & an average of 20 or so points:
"Suppose a woman enters the United States as an illegal alien and gives birth to a child in the United States. Should that child automatically become a citizen of the United States?"
I'd bet a lot of money that the results would flip if you asked it this way: "Under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, any child born in the United States automatically becomes a U.S. citizen. Should we amend the Constitution to exclude the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens?"
That was me.
I'd quite possibly have voted against the current text of the bill if that were what was coming out of conference instead of going into conference, but I really don't think Durbin was going to vote no if it had gotten past cloture.
Maybe not. I'm hoping for better days.
The immigration bill has unleashed considerable repressed right wing hostility towards Bush. As for example in this Ace of Spades post (see also comment 4).
119: "What if it's all true?" Gee, do ya think?
I wrote a post that's entirely too long, but directly responsive to 20 and 43.
I just read it before you linked. I love that poem -- it makes me tear up.